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13th September 2018

BofA Merrill Introduces Mobile Wallets for Business Cardholders

NEW YORK CITY – Starting this month, mobile wallets will begin to make our commercial clients’ lives easier through faster, more secure and more efficient business purchases, while providing the same convenience they have in their personal transactions. The millions of Bank of America Merrill Lynch cardholders who use their corporate, commercial and purchasing cards in the United States are now able to use Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay to make business purchases.

Bank of America has offered mobile payment services to customers, clients and merchants since 2014, but the addition of mobile wallets for commercial cardholders is new to the industry.

“We are very pleased to announce today a new, highly convenient mobile capability to our commercial clients,” said Hubert J.P. Jolly, head of Financing and Channels in Global Transaction Services at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Cardholders will no longer have to search for their physical wallet for every business purchase. The result should be faster transactions and greater peace of mind for the cardholder.”

Mobile wallets help protect client information by substituting an account number with a token, an automatically generated number that is loaded onto the mobile device (also known as a virtual card number). The client’s actual account number is not stored on the device, and the merchant neither sees nor stores the number. For additional security, the mobile wallet typically requires identity confirmation, such as a thumbprint or pass code, to complete transactions.

Mastercard and Visa will process transactions similar to how they process physical card transactions today except most merchants won't have access to a person’s actual card number; merchants will receive the unique virtual card number associated with a person’s credit or debit card. Mastercard must provide the person’s actual card number to certain transit merchants (e.g., subway systems) in order to process real-time transactions.